In many situations, it is desirable to have a cleaning device that incorporates a cleaning head and a reservoir for storing cleaning fluid. With such a device, cleaning fluid can be dispensed onto the surface to be cleaned, and then the cleaning head can be used with the cleaning fluid to clean the surface. Although cleaning devices that combine a cleaning head with a cleaning fluid reservoir are well known, the known devices suffer from at least one of several drawbacks.
Devices such as the devices disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,802,782 to Scalf, and U.S. Pat. No. 2,566,429 to Schulman, utilize gravity feed to discharge the cleaning fluid from a reservoir to a surface to be cleaned. However, gravity feed does not operate properly unless the reservoir is maintained above the cleaning surface. Therefore, when vertical or overhead surfaces are to be cleaned, gravity-fed devices do not operate to properly discharge the cleaning fluid onto the cleaning surface. Additionally, gravity-fed devices lack sufficient fluid pressure to provide a proper spray pattern to disperse the cleaning fluid onto the cleaning surface.
Other known devices pressurize the fluid in the reservoir to overcome the problems associated with gravity-fed devices. However, such devices are either overly bulky and heavy, or are cumbersome to operate. For instance, the device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,053,282 to W. C. Gewalt utilizes a pressure vessel as a cleaning fluid reservoir. The reservoir is pressurized by way of a hand pump. Operation of the device in Gewalt '282 is burdened by the need to operate the hand pump to pressurize the reservoir. Additionally, the pressure vessel adds bulk and weight to the device, making the device more difficult to use, particularly on vertical or overhead surfaces.